Egypt president-elect vows to fight for authorityCAIRO (AP) — President-elect Mohammed Morsi roused the masses in Tahrir Square on Friday, vowing to fight on behalf of the people and defying the ruling generals by reading a symbolic oath of office a day early at the site where Egypt’s revolution was born. The country’s first Islamist president also made a pledge likely to complicate relations with the U.S., vowing to seek the release of blind sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, jailed in the U.S. for p...

US, Russia fail to bridge gaps on SyriaGENEVA (AP) — The United States and Russia failed on Friday to bridge differences over a plan to ease Syrian President Bashar Assad out of power, end violence and create a new government. That set the stage for the potential collapse of a key multinational conference that was to have endorsed the proposal. On the eve of Saturday’s conference, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met one-on-o...

Chimps attack American at South Africa sanctuaryJOHANNESBURG (AP) — Chimpanzees at a sanctuary founded by famed primatologist Jane Goodall pulled a Texas graduate student into their fenced-off enclosure, dragging him nearly a half-mile and biting his ear and hands. Andrew F. Oberle was giving a lecture to a group of tourists at the Chimp Eden sanctuary on Thursday when two chimpanzees grabbed his feet and pulled him under a fence into their enclosure, said Jeffrey Wicks of the Netcare911 em...

European leaders’ breakthrough defied expectationsBRUSSELS (AP) — Europe’s leaders finally rose to the challenge Friday, backing bold ideas to help weak countries and frail banks ravaged by a debt crisis that has crippled economic growth and threatened the global financial system. Markets roared their approval after leaders of the 27 European Union countries agreed on an aggressive plan to fix the financial crisis. For the first time in 19 summits since the start of the crisis, the EU leaders...

Eurozone leaders discuss emergency market measuresBRUSSELS (AP) — The leaders of the 17 countries that use the euro scrambled early Friday to consider emergency measures to lower the borrowing costs of Italy and Spain. The success of a summit meant to reassure markets hung in the balance. A modest agreement by the 27 leaders of the European Union to spend (euro) 120 billion ($149 billion) to stimulate economic growth was thrown into flux after Italy and Spain said they would block it unless i...

British police demand Assange report to stationLONDON (AP) — British police served Julian Assange on Thursday with a demand that he report to a police station as the first step in his extradition to Sweden to face sex crime allegations. The WikiLeaks founder said he was unlikely to obey the order to show up on Friday. The letter was delivered to Ecuador’s London embassy, where Assange has been holed up for nine days. The Metropolitan Police said it had “served a surrender notice upon a 40-...

Turkey fortifies Syrian border; bomb hits DamascusBEIRUT (AP) — Turkey deployed anti-aircraft guns, rocket launchers and other weapons along its border with Syria on Thursday, a military buildup that came as world powers showed new urgency to resolve the crisis before it ignites the region. A bomb exploded in central Damascus near a busy market and the country’s main justice complex, wounding at least three people, damaging cars in a parking lot and sending a black cloud rising above the Syri...

UN court acquits Karadzic of 1 genocide countTHE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Yugoslav war crimes tribunal acquitted former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic of one charge of genocide Thursday but upheld 10 other war crimes counts related to atrocities in Bosnia’s bloody war. While the decision was a setback for prosecutors and angered survivors in Bosnia, the 10 pending charges against Karadzic include another genocide count covering his alleged involvement in the 1995 Srebrenica ma...

2 terror suspects arrested in LondonLONDON (AP) — London police have detained two British Muslim converts on suspicion of terror offenses Thursday, a U.K. security official told The Associated Press. The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said it wasn’t clear whether the arrests were related to the upcoming Olympic Games. Security is tight ahead of the London games, which begin on July 27. “This doesn’t appear to b...

’Miss Holocaust Survivor’ crowned in IsraelHAIFA, Israel (AP) — Grinning and waving, 14 women who survived the horrors of World War II paraded Thursday in an unusual pageant, vying for the honor of being crowned Israel’s first “Miss Holocaust Survivor.” Billed by organizers as a celebration of life, the event also stirred controversy. In a country where millions have been touched by the Holocaust, many argued that judging aging women who had suffered so much on physical appearance was ...

2 bodies recovered in Canada mall roof collapseELLIOT LAKE, Ontario (AP) — Officials recovered two bodies after dismantling a piece of a partially collapsed Ontario shopping mall on Wednesday and said they are confident no other victims are inside. The renewed rescue effort came after angry residents shouted down fears that the unstable structure made the work too risky to continue. Police Staff Insp. Bill Neadles of the Toronto-based Heavy Urban Search and Rescue team said both victims ha...

Syria violence escalates as US seeks turning pointBEIRUT (AP) — Gunmen attacked a pro-government TV station Wednesday near the Syrian capital, killing seven employees in the latest barrage of violence as world powers prepared for a high-level meeting that the U.S. hopes will be a turning point in the crisis. Invitations to Saturday’s gathering in Geneva were sent by special envoy Kofi Annan to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — including Syrian allies Russia and China —...

Troubled Europe summit: Merkel vs everyone elsePARIS (AP) — Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel is the woman to watch — or fear, or confront — in Europe this week. The leaders of Italy, France and Spain are pressing their northern neighbor at a European Union summit starting Thursday to agree to share debts before markets push the eurozone any closer to collapse. The EU’s top officials and the International Monetary Fund have argued the same. Markets and investors, who felt burned in the pa...

Death toll, injuries mount from Mali rebel clashBAMAKO, Mali (AP) — The tenuous truce between two of the rebel groups controlling northern Mali was shattered on Wednesday, as the rebel faction bent on creating an Islamic state fought its way into the buildings used by a secular rebel group. The latter was forced to beat a retreat and one of their leaders was airlifted abroad after being shot in the leg. Resident Hamadada Toure said that he had cowered inside his home during the morning, whe...

Taliban video shows 17 beheaded Pakistani soldiersDERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) — The Taliban released a video Wednesday that they say shows the heads of 17 Pakistani soldiers captured in a cross-border raid from Afghanistan this week and beheaded. In violence Wednesday, a bomb in a railway station in Pakistan’s southwest killed at least five people, police said, and the leader of an anti-Taliban militia was killed in Peshawar in the northwest. The Pakistani Taliban’s bloody cross-border ra...

Egypt’s generals eye Turkish modelCAIRO (AP) — Now that Egypt has its first freely elected president, Egypt’s powerful generals appear headed toward copying the Turkish model from decades past — retaining overwhelming powers while allowing a civilian regime complete with the trappings of democracy to emerge. It is not the model that many in today’s Turkey boast about, but rather one dating back to the 1980s and 1990s when civilians ran Turkey’s day-to-day affairs under the wat...

Police: 19 sect members killed in Nigeria clashesDAMATURU, Nigeria (AP) — Multiple clashes between security forces and suspected members of a radical Islamist sect in Nigeria’s north have left four policemen, four civilians and 19 militants dead, authorities said Wednesday, as the feared sect continues to widen the scope of its attacks. Assailants torched two blocks of empty classrooms at the Federal Polytechnic Damaturu in the northeastern city of Damaturu Tuesday evening, said Yobe state p...